Teaching Peace in Yoga Class

By Dr. Melissa West

In conjunction with the Global Mala Project designed to unite the worldwide yoga community on the UN International Peace Day (September 22, 2007) I have been inspired to teach yoga this fall through the mantra of yoga as peace in action. Naturally some questions arise: What is peace? How do you teach peace in a yoga class?

Although everybody seems to have an innate understanding of peace, it becomes a difficult state to describe. In the context of a global community peace is understood as the cessation of war. On an individual level peace can be described as calm, serene, silence, equilibrium and harmony.
Yoga naturally lends itself to a quest for peace. Yoga is a process of releasing dis-ease and tension in the body to quiet the mind for meditation. With yoga we can find peace within ourselves. Once the individual achieves peace in their own lives then the belief is that the state of serene, calm and harmony ripples out into the world influencing others.

How then do you teach peace in a yoga class?

Pranayama or breath practice lends itself to the quest for peace. Guide your students to slow down their breath and become aware of the peaceful rhythm of the inhalation and exhalation. Teach your students to passively accept their breath rather than force it to become deeper. You can be more literal about it as well encouraging students to draw peace into their body with each inhalation and release tension with each exhalation. Simply following the breath brings peace to the body and mind.

When leading guided relaxation help students to become aware of the spaces in their bodies where peace already exists. Then use breath and yoga postures to expand that feeling of peace throughout the class.

Mantras are a particularly effective way to shift our minds towards peace. I love Tich Nhat Hanh’s mantra from Peace is Every Step “Breathing in I calm my body, Breathing out I smile.” Tich Nhat Hanh teaches that peace and happiness are available to use if we can quiet our distracted minds.

The single pointed focus of yoga can help students move away from multi-tasking common in today’s frantic world. Yoga postures and breath practice naturally center our students in a way that calms the mind and emotions giving a sense of peace.

When teaching the physical postures remind students to come into the present moment and become fully aware of their bodies. The postures can be an opportunity to let go of the worries of the past and future and come into the present moment of the body.

Teaching peace in a yoga class means reminding students to move with “ease and steadiness” as Rodney Yee says. How many times have you observed students struggling to make their posture look like the photo in Iyengar’s Light on Yoga? Encourage students to find their own equilibrium and harmony in a pose, that state where peace exists. Yoga is not about the shape of the posture, rather the feeling of peace being cultivated in the body.

Consider the types of poses that you are teaching. Restorative poses such as legs up the wall can be fantastic for calming the central nervous system and bringing peace to the body. Balancing postures such as tree pose help the students to center themselves and come into the present moment.

Teaching peace in yoga class may simply mean adjusting the way you instruct your students. Move slowly, speak in a calm manner, create limitless space and time. Slow down your sun salutations taking extra time and breath. Remember in yoga we have “infinite time and no ambition.”

Teaching peace in yoga class may seem elusive or even unfeasible. However, if we return to the core premise of yoga described by Patanjali as a means to “chitta-vrtti-nirohdah” or cease the turnings of the mind we are reminded that we are teaching peace every time we teach a yoga class. As yoga teachers we simply must return our intention and single pointed focus to this goal.
Dr. Melissa West is a yoga teacher who is contributing to the Global Mala Project on September 22nd. For more information see http://melissawest.com/ and http://www.globalmala.org/

Job Search Strategies - Resumes That Rock - Seven Tips For Creating a World Class Resume

By Jane Trevaskis

First, and foremost, remember than a resume is used to screen out, not in. It is used to reduce the foot-high pile to a manageable handful. And this function is usually performed by someone other than the hiring manager. So, your goal is to get past this step to the person who can actually decide to hire you. Most people create a resume at the beginning of their career and simply update it from then on. Now might be a good time to take another look at yours. Here are seven tips on how to best translate your accomplishments into a resume.

1. Start with a summary. I know you think of a summary as the ending of a document. Think of this more like an executive summary at the beginning of a proposal. Most importantly, it is the only part of your resume that is almost always read. It’s the portion where you talk about the scope of your career and those capabilities that won’t fit into a specific accomplishment bullet.

2. Focus on accomplishments rather than responsibilities. You want your resume to reflect the successes you have had throughout your career. It’s much more effective to say that you brought in 150% of sales goal than to say you were responsible for sales in the southeast region. Review your career and focus in on the Situation you were presented with, the Actions you took and the Outcome you produced.

3. Never more than two pages. Most people who see lots of resumes automatically discard any that exceed two pages. If you are a recent college graduate, one page is probably plenty, but more than two is a real no-no. The only exceptions are academia and organizations that are closely related to academia. Then it is frequently called a curriculum vitae (or c.v.) instead of a resume.

4. Make it easy to read. If it’s hard to read, most people won't even try. Beginning all sections of the resume with action verbs helps. You can find lists of action verbs specific to your profession from books in the career section of your local bookstore on just google the term “keywords” and you'll get more than you could ever use. People scan resumes, they don’t read them. Most people who read lots of resumes spend less than 10 seconds on the first pass through – and that’s the one when they reduce the number of resumes that will be read more thoroughly from, for instance, 100 to 10. So, scan your resume yourself to make sure that your points get across in a less-than-thorough read.

5. References available upon request – NOT. Everybody knows that references are available and, since you have limited space on a resume, you don't need to waste the space. But you do have to have identified at least six people willing to serve as a reference and be able to provide their names and contact information within 24 hours of a request.

6. Education. The degrees you hold are important but, if your major wasn't relevant to this opportunity, don’t mention it. If you are looking for a job in a technical arena and your degree is in art history, it's better to just skip it. And if your degree is more than five years old, the date doesn’t go on your resume. However, both the institution you attended and the degree you earned are very important.

7. Optional Sections and Addendum. The final section of a resume is where you put those other parts of your background that are applicable. This section could list certifications, memberships (both professional associations and applicable volunteer involvement), awards, military experience, or technical skills. If you have an overload of one kind of optional information (patents, publications, technical skills, etc.) it can become a one-page addendum that you won’t give to everyone. However, an addendum must focus on only one subject – it is definitely not a third page of your resume. One addendum per resume.

Now, take a look at your current resume and spruce it up with these tips.

With your permission, I’d like to offer you a free report: Action Verbs for Resumes. You can download it by going to http://www.acatalystinyoursuccess.com/Report_Action_Verbs.html

If you would like to hear more about resumes and the other tools you need to conduct a successful job search visit http://www.acatalystinyoursuccess.com/Career_Home_Page.html
From Jane Trevaskis and Success-Catalyst.com